EU to Approve U.K. Mobile Payments Consortium

European Union regulators will approve plans by British mobile operators Vodafone, O2 and Everything Everywhere to set up a mobile payments joint venture, Reuters reports. The consortium therefore would represent 92 percent of all U.K. mobile subscribers. 

Known informally as "Project Oscar," the venture will create a mobile wallet platform and an advertising sales effort aimed at about 74 million subscribers to all of the partner mobile networks, or about 92 percent of all mobile subscribers in the United Kingdom. 

The project is designed to enable extensive "data mining" on consumption habits, location and demographics of customers, which would in turn allow creation of highly-targeted advertising and other loyalty services.

Customers would be able to store debit and credit card details on their phones and pay for goods and services either online at retail locations by using their near field communications equipped smart phones.

Mobile Service Providers in Spectrum Race?

AT&T is putting together approximately $2.6 billion in spectrum deals, proposing at least 24 deals in the last four months, in a bid to narrow the spectrum gap between itself and Verizon Wireless. 

Verizon recently bought airwave rights from four major cable companies for $3.9 billion, adding even more spectrum at frequencies ideally suited for in-building signal penetration and signal range. 

Some argue there is no need for more spectrum, but most observers would agree more spectrum is necessary. 

That said, there are multiple techniques for increasing the amount of usable spectrum, including more efficient coding, use of small cells and cell dividing. 

Nobody disagrees that mobile demand is going to outstrip existing capacity. 

For more, read the perspective.

Voice Mail Messages Decline 8% in a Year

People seem to be leaving significantly fewer voice mail messages, compared to a year ago, according to an analysis by Vonage. The number of voice mail messages left on user accounts was down eight percent in July 2012 from a year ago.

Retrieved voice mail fell 14 percent among Vonage users as well,according to Vonage. 

EC Looks to Create Europe-Wide 5 GHz Unlicensed Frequency Band

The European Commission now is looking at ways to create a single band of shared non-licensed spectrum across the European Union, The new shared spectrum would support 
services at 5 GHz, in somewhat the same manner that Wi-Fi now is used by multiple suppliers. 

Though probably not a great candidate for mobile services, the proposed common new spectrum would be useful for mobile data offload and machine to machine services, for example. 

Kansas City Wireless ISP Offers Businesses 30 Mbps or So, Using Unlicensed Spectrum

Computers & Tele-Comm, Inc. (CTC), a wireless Internet service provider, has provided high-end network services to enterprise businesses and government clients for years in Kansas City, currently offerng speeds of about 30 Mbps, using unlicensed spectrum. 

CTC is not alone. 

Can Technology Replace 80 Percent of Doctor-Provided Care?

Vinod Khosla, a noted venture capitalist and co-founder of Sun Microsystems, thinks as much as 80 percent of doctor-provided care ultimately can be replaced by use of cloud-based, machine-driven mechanisms. 

Khosla might be too optimistic, but the application of massive cloud computing and machine-to-machine communications and sensors would be the foundation for such initiatives, which explains why the health vertical continues to be seen as an area ripe for innovation by developers and mobile service providers alike. 

Skype Accounts for 33% of all Cross-Border Calling Minutes

Microsoft-owned Skype  accounts for about 33 percent of all international long distance voice minutes of use, about 145 billion of the total 438 billion minutes used in 2011. Skype's share of cross-border calling will grow in 2012, in part because the base of potential users is going to grow significantly.  According to Skype CEO Tony Bates, Skype has 254 million monthly active users and is “growing somewhere around 40 percent year on year.”